This relates to the field of jewelry, in particular to connecting two parts of a jewelry assembly used to secure ornamental structures to parts of the body through holes made through layers of skin, e.g., ear rings, ear studs, nose rings, etc.
For many years and dating back to early and primitive societies, the practice of ornamentation of the human body by piercing holes in the human skin and inserting some type of ornamental structure or jewelry has been known. More recently, in the western world, the use of body piercing has expanded much beyond the pierced ears for women of our parents"" generation to multiple ear piercing, as well as piercing of facial features, such as the nose and lip, and other locations on the human body where folds of skin might be pierced to provide stimulation or enhancement to the wearer or to companions of the wearer when those parts of the body are exposed.
A common appliance used to provide body ornamentation through pierced openings is a barbell structure as pictured in FIG. 1. A central shaft 20 is threaded at both ends. A pair of ball structures 22, 24 are machined with threads and two short length of threaded stock 26, 28 are cut and fitted to the balls 22, 24. One end (the left end is shown in FIG. 1) is tightly assembled by the manufacturer while at the other end the threaded rod 26 is fixed tightly to the ball 22. In use when the shaft 20 passes through a body-piercing opening, the right hand side ball and thread unit 22, 26 can be removed and reattached by threading it into the end of the shaft 20. The enlarged balls 22, 24 on the ends of the shaft 20 provide an ornamental function, as well as acting as an end stop to prevent the ornamental piece from sliding out of the body-pierced opening to be lost.
Recent trends in body-piercing jewelry are to provide multiple piercings with smaller and smaller dimensions of jewelry so that they are nearly unnoticeable to the casual observer while still providing the desired effect among a particular peer group.
As a result of the demand for the decreasing sizes of jewelry, dimensions have gotten smaller and smaller until the rod 20, as shown in FIG. 1, is as small as {fraction (1/16)} (0.0625) inches (1.58 mm). The drawback of structures so small is that it increases the care that a user desiring to wear an ornament attached to such a small rod has to use to separate the rod from its threaded end enlargement. Further once the rod is passed through the pierced opening, the required alignment between the halves of the threaded connection must be very precise to rejoin the end piece having very fine threads with the very small opening in the end of the rod. To the manufacturer of this ornament, the complexity and precision needed to machine threads into a small rod and a small ball end, as well as introducing and inserting a threaded stud are becoming nearly insurmountable. Further, once such a structure is assembled, it is subject to nearly constant vibration that can cause the screwed connection to begin to unravel. With such small threads and pieces, without constant and retightening it is nearly impossible to notice that the end piece is loose on the rod until it actually falls off.
Therefore, there is a need to provide an improved connection system as an alternative to a threaded connection system for body-pierced openings that is easy to assemble and reduces the likelihood that the assembly will come apart, or, if it starts to come apart that a user (wearer) will notice.
A tubular connection system as recited in the Claims is provided which is useful in connecting two parts of a jewelry set, particularly through a body-pierced opening. When using this configuration the dimensions of the connecting structures and their related ornamentation can be reduced and handled by a user without requiring the user to don magnifying glasses. The connection system provides an elastic, secure, nearly vibration-proof, connection whose partial separation can easily be observed and noticed by a quick glance.
A connector assembly according to the invention includes a tubular female piece attached to one part of the ornamental assembly while a stem (male piecle) is attached to a second part of the ornamental assembly., The two pieces are configured to mate with each other. In a precursor arrangement, a simple straight stem is inserted into a hollow tube but such an arrangement provides nearly no retention function. However, when at least one piece is made of a material with a high modulus of elasticity and is configured into a bent shape, (either of the pieces may be bent). Then when the two pieces are slidably joined together, the one bent piece will elastically deform to cause a wedging or clamping action as a result of the interaction between the bent piece and the straight piece (or a partially bent piece). This interaction will cause the two pieces to bind to one another in a secure engagement. The larger the degree of bending, the greater the security, and the greater difficulty there is in separating the two pieces (the larger the separation force that must be used.
In one configuration according to the invention, a stem having a proximal end has a set of one or more proximal end engagement surfaces aligned to a proximal end longitudinal axis. The stem also has a distal end having a set of one or more distal end engagement surfaces aligned to a distal end longitudinal axis. While a circular orientation for the stem and tube is optimum for manufacturing and usability, regular or irregular polygon shapes may also be used on the circumference of the engagement surfaces. The stem mates with a stem-receiving member which has proximal and distal ends oriented oppositely from the proximal and distal ends of the stem. The stem-receiving member has a set of distal end surfaces aligned to a distal end longitudinal axis and a set of one or more proximal end surfaces aligned to a proximal end longitudinal axis. The receiving member distal and proximal end surfaces mate with the stem proximal and distal engagement surfaces to create a binding (frictional) force from the forcible (predominantly) elastic joining of a straight member with a bent (or curved) one. In each instance, it is important that at least one of the membersxe2x80x94either the stem or the stem receiving memberxe2x80x94have proximal and distal axes, at least one of which is not co-linearly aligned. A co-linearly alignment between the proximal and distal ends would mean, generally, that the structure is linear, which would provide no sidewards bending force. When the stem and stem-receiving member are in an engaged configuration a portion of one or more proximal and engagement surfaces of the stem are in contact with, and press against, a portion of the distal end surface of the stem-receiving member, and a portion of the set of one or more distal end engagement surfaces are in contact with and press against a portion of a set of one or more proximal end surfaces of said stem-receiving member, such that a releasable engagement is created between the two which will prevent disengagement of the two unless an external separating force is used.
In another configuration, a jewelry connection apparatus includes a first piece having a first stem having a first outer diameter, the first stem being bent so that an end view of the first bent stem has an outline having a second diameter which exceeds the first outer diameter in at least one direction. A second piece having a first linear tube having a third inner diameter that is larger that the first outer diameter but smaller than the second diameter such that insertion of the bent stem into the first tube causes an elastic straightening deflection of the first stem within the first tube to reduce the second diameter in said end view to within the third inner diameter, such that a releasable engagement is created between the first piece and the second piece, which will prevent disengagement of the two unless an external separating force is used. The external separating force is generally axial but can also be a twisting motion to reduce the frictional effect of the binding between pieces.
The jewelry connection stem can have a central portion having a reduced diameter to reduce binding in the tube.
The jewelry connection apparatus may further include a second stem portion substantially aligned to be in parallel with the first stem and, at least in one configuration, co-linear therewith. The second piece may include a second linear tube to receive the second stem such that the straightening deflection of the first stem occurs in cooperation with said second stem being inserted and engaged with the second linear tube.
Alternately, the jewelry connection apparatus configuration may be reversed such that the first piece has a first inner passage having a first inner diameter, the first inner passage being bent so that an end view of the first passage including hidden lines for a distance xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d along the first inner passage has an outline having a second diameter which exceeds the first diameter in at least one direction. The second piece also has a first linear stem having a third outer diameter with the third diameter being smaller than the first inner diameter such that insertion of the stem into the first inner passage for the known distance (xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d) causes an elastic bending deflection of the first stem within the first inner passage, such that a releasable engagement is created between the first piece and the second piece which will prevent disengagement of the two unless an external separating force is used.
A method of making a releasable connection between jewelry pieces is also disclosed. It provides the steps of: providing a first piece with an elastic stem having a proximal end circumferential surface central axis and a distal and circumferential surface central axis with the two axes having a first attitude relative to one another when unconnected, and the step of insertion of the elastic stem into a tubular passage causing the proximal end circumferential surface central axis and the distal end circumferential surface central axis to elastically deflect to a second attitude resulting from the contact between a portion of the proximal end circumferential surface and a portion of the distal end circumferential surface and the correlating inner surfaces of the mating tubular passage. In one instance, the proximal end circumferential surface central axis and the distal end circumferential surface central axis of the first piece are not co-linearly aligned with each other when the pieces are unconnected. In a second instance, the two axes of the first piece are co-linearly aligned with each other when the pieces are unconnected. It is possible that each of the pieces would be very slightly bent (albeit not the same amountxe2x80x94as that would in one configuration form a curved tube inside a another curved tube) or that only one or the other of the pieces would be bent such that the longitudinal axes at the ends of the engagement pieces would have at least one set of those axes which are not aligned (i.e., the pieces bent) for the structure to engage and maintain a connection. Alternately the method may include the steps of: providing a first piece with a high modulus of elasticity stem portion having a bend therein, when the first piece is not in an engaged configuration with a second piece, using a first force to insert and remove the stem portion in to and out from a tubular substantially smooth bore passage of a high modulus of elasticity tube portion of the second piece; and adjusting the first force by inserting the elastic stem portion in to and removing the elastic stem portion out from the linear tubular substantially smooth bore passage of the second piece. When the first piece is not in an engaged configuration with other pieces, a proximal end circumferential surface central axis and a distal end circumferential surface central axis of the stem portion are not colinearly aligned with each other. When the first piece is not in an engaged configuration with other pieces, a proximal end circumferential surface central axis and a distal end circumferential surface central axis of the stem portion are colinearly aligned with each other
To utilize the device and method according to the invention, a material having a high modulus of elasticity must be used. An example of such a material is a {fraction (6/4)} Titanium alloy (commonly known as TiAl6V4). Other materials may be a spring-grade steel; however, compatibility with the human body and avoiding allergic and infectious reactions must be considered such that 316L stainless steel, other Titanium alloys, Niobium and highly-alloyed gold material may be evaluated, and if the required elastic properties endure, may be used.